Charleston

by Margaret Bradham Thornton

  Eliza ducked out around the corner past Christie’s South Kensington to a small store to buy milk and orange juice and coffee and a newspaper. She crossed the street to the French patisserie and bought a croissant. She returned home and made coffee and sat at the counter in her shoe box kitchen and sifted through her mail. She skimmed The International Herald Tribune and pulled the croissant apart into small pieces.

  She had sat here many mornings before, but now it felt sharp and disturbing because of what would follow. She had to call Jamie, she should have called him many times before now. He didn’t know anything about Henry. She would be giving Jamie up forever, but she knew the longer she waited, the worse it would be.

  Eliza took a long bath and thought about what she would say to Jamie. Jamie had always been good with words. She remembered when she had just moved to London, he had invited her to a show of his photographs titled “Jamie Barings—When Truth Made a Run for It—More or Less.” At the crowded show he had found her and asked her to take pity on him as a “man abandoned by space” and to have dinner with him.

  She had never told Jamie anything about her former relationship with Henry, and now she wished she had, because it might make it easier for him to understand. She thought about all the Saturday and Sunday mornings Jamie would make coffee and return with the papers and warm baguettes. She put the phone in front of her and punched the number of Jamie’s flat. His younger brother answered and said that Jamie had gone to his office. Eliza had hoped to see him at his flat, but maybe his office, vacant on a Saturday morning, was a better place. She hailed a taxi. When she arrived, the main entry doors were unlocked, but the reception desk was deserted. She walked to the back, where Jamie’s office was hidden around a corner. She could hear his voice. He was on the phone. She knocked and opened his door. He was leaning back in his chair, chewing the end of his pencil, his feet on top of his desk. He saw Eliza, and his feet hit the floor with a thud. “Oh my God. Call you back.” He jumped up and put his arms around her and kissed her. “My God, Eliza, why didn’t you call me to pick you up? You look great. You’re so tanned. I’ve missed you so much. I was just about to head down to Christopher’s for the weekend. Caroline and Simon are—”

  “Jamie, stop.” Eliza put her hands up, as if she were pushing against a wall. “Jamie, I’ve got to tell you something.” She held on to the back of a chair but did not sit down. “I’ve been seeing Henry.”

  “Henry?” Jamie shook his head, as if he were trying to clear his mind. “Henry—who I met at Caroline’s wedding? God, that was awfully quick, wasn’t it?”

  “Jamie, I’ve known him all my life. We had been together ten years ago and broke up. But I guess—”

  “Why didn’t you ever mention him?”

  “I don’t know. I should have. It was over ten years ago. It was completely over. We hadn’t seen each other since then.”

  Jamie sat sideways on his desk. “You didn’t know he was coming over here?” The sound of his low, calm voice reminded Eliza of the time he had told her about the day his mother had dropped him off at Ludgrove. He was eight, and after the tour of the school, he had turned to his mother and said, “But, Mummy, you aren’t really going to leave me here?”

  “No. Not at all,” Eliza said. “I didn’t even know he knew Caroline.”

  Jamie searched her eyes. “Are you in love with him?” His voice was even quieter.

  “I think so.”

  “What do you mean, you think so? Eliza, either you are or—”

  She leaned back against the office wall. “Yes.”

  Jamie had heard the answer he did not want to hear, and he was not certain where to go. “Well, Eliza, that changes everything.” He stood up and moved back behind his desk. He searched for something under the papers scattered across the top. “I guess there isn’t anything more to say,” he said without looking up at her.

  “Jamie, I’m sorry.”

  “You could have told me before now. You left me a message that you would be staying two more weeks, but that was it. For almost four weeks I’ve been waiting for you to come back. I only called you once. I didn’t want you to feel any pressure. You never responded to my letter.” He opened a drawer and retrieved a set of car keys.

  “Jamie, I just didn’t know.”

  “So you sort yourself out, but keep me on hold until you do.”

  “No, I left here because I wasn’t sure we were right together, and you told me I was making a mistake, that it wouldn’t be good for us, but I left anyway. That’s how unsettled I was about us.” She reached out to touch his arm.

  “Don’t.” He held his hand out, as if he were pushing her words away from him. “I’ve got to get out of here.” Before she could say anything, Jamie had disappeared. Eliza stood in the middle of his office.

  She sat down. She had said none of the words she had planned or wanted to say. She had wanted to make Jamie understand. She clung to the arms of her chair because she felt if she didn’t, she wouldn’t exist. Everything in her body felt disconnected, and she didn’t know how to put any of it back together.

  ELIZA WALKED DOWN FLEET STREET AND FOLLOWED THE Strand until she found herself in Trafalgar Square. If she concentrated hard enough, she could keep all the turbulent feelings locked from her mind. The square was filled with tourists who had been discharged, then reabsorbed, by the large air-conditioned buses that carted them around to all the sights of London.

  Eliza walked down the long sycamore-lined avenue of the Mall. The south side of the Mall along the park was quieter. She wanted to get away from the confused sounds of the afternoon traffic. Jamie would probably be arriving about now at Christopher’s, and he would have a few drinks and play tennis or sit by the pool, and Christopher would have several unattached trainees from Christie’s art program—Devinas or Isabellas or Leonoras—who would listen with doe-eyed attention to stories of Jamie’s latest travels.

  It was one of those rare English days when the sun was strong, and everything seemed brighter than normal—the green grass and red geraniums and yellow daffodils. Even the tourists who always seemed to blur in a murky grayish blue swath of color seemed clear and loud and clamoring for photographs. She no longer belonged here. She knew that after this summer she would never come back.

  When she got home she checked her messages, but there were none.

  DURING THE FOLLOWING WEEKS, ELIZA MET WITH HER adviser at his home in Ladbroke Grove at nine thirty every morning. Sometimes he would take her to lunch at his club, but more often they would have a sandwich and coffee bought from a shop around the corner and continue working with only a short break. Together they reviewed the final draft of the four-hundred-page Magritte manuscript page by page, double-checking one last time for typos and accuracy. Most evenings they finished at seven, and Eliza would return to her flat to continue compiling the permission list required by the legal department of the publisher. She was grateful to have something in front of her that required all of her time and attention. She organized and completed applications to various art institutes in America, but she decided to wait to send them out.

  Henry called every few days, and they spoke about her work, and he always had things to tell her about Lawton. He was teaching Lawton how to surf and to water-ski, and, of course, they played tennis often. Lawton came to the paper a few times and was given “jobs,” which thrilled him. Mrs. Heyward was taking Lawton soon for a week to visit her brother in Wyoming. Henry had hired the Baldwin Brothers, a local Folly Beach earth-moving company, to fix the washed-out area at the Folly Beach property. A lot of Charlestonians had already left the city for summer houses in Flat Rock, North Carolina, and he said the controversy over the Port Authorities’ plans had died down with the heat. It was as if no one had any more energy left to fight.

  On July 15, and for each of the fourteen days thereafter, Eliza received in the mail a photograph from Henry that he had taken on that early morning they had spent together on the Edisto. The photographs w
ere elegant and serene and made Eliza think about the beauty of that morning. She had avoided going to the Tate to check the files on the Bonnard picture because she knew it would make her sad to think about Jamie. He was the one who had told her she was looking at the wrong picture. And she knew if she found the right picture, she would want to tell him. She first made an appointment to speak with the archivist at the National Portrait Gallery. She wanted to see what they had on Henrietta Johnston.

  And then she did go to the Tate. A dour, assistant keeper of the collection dragged out the massive four-volume catalogue raisonné. Eliza started with the third volume, which covered the nineteen-year period between 1920 and 1939, and read the exhibition history of every painting page by page. When she reviewed the year 1923, she passed the painting she had identified earlier. But instead of stopping, as she had done the first time, she kept working her way backward. By late afternoon she had finished volume III and started on volume II, which covered the period 1906 to 1919. At quarter to five, the assistant keeper of the collection appeared and ushered her out. She had worked her way only through 1918 and 1919. She would have to come back the following day and begin with 1917.

  That evening she worked for several hours packing up papers and books to ship back to Charleston. She found a book of essays by Joseph Brodsky with a slip of newspaper marking a spot. The book was not hers. It must have been one Jamie had left behind. She opened the book to the marked spot and read the passage underlined in pencil.

  No one can tell you what lies ahead, least of all those who remain behind. One thing, however, they can assure you of is that it’s not a round trip. Try, therefore, to derive some comfort from the notion that no matter how unpalatable this or that station may turn out to be, the train doesn’t stop there for good. Therefore, you are never stuck—not even when you feel you are; for this place today becomes your past. From now on, it will only be receding for you, for that train is in constant motion. It will be receding for you even when you feel that you are stuck. . . . So take one last look at it, while it is still its normal size, while it is not yet a photograph. Look at it with all the tenderness you can muster, for you are looking at your past.

  Jamie had once told Eliza that he never tried to find anything he had lost—he had learned there was no point—absolutely none—looking for it. Jamie made decisions based on that belief. He had learned to look forward, not sideways, and never backward. She felt with Henry that she could be lost forever and he would still try to find her. After ten years he had not given up hope of their being together. Despite what had happened, she felt safe with him. Maybe it was as simple as Jamie having taught himself, out of necessity, to see without memory. She wondered if going off to boarding school at age eight had taught him a way of navigating an emotional world that required always going forward. She thought about Jamie and how angry he had been. She understood his anger, but she knew he would be all right soon. Maybe that is what frightened her about him.

  The following morning, when the second volume was delivered to her, she resumed where she had left off. By lunchtime she had found a second painting that had been exhibited at the 1939 Golden Gate Exhibition. This one, titled Salle à manger à la campagne, had been painted in 1913, ten years earlier than the one she had previously identified. Here was the woman standing outside a house, leaning with her elbows on the windowsill, looking in. There was even a cat with light green eyes. She put the volume down and rested her head in her hands and rubbed her eyes. How could she have ever thought the first painting was the correct one? She felt slightly sick to her stomach with how close she had come to making such a bad mistake. In the same way that she had tried to convince herself that the first painting she identified was the correct one, hadn’t she tried, for a period of time, to convince herself that she and Jamie were right together? In both cases she had pretended that what wasn’t there didn’t matter. But why had she needed someone to act as a catalyst for her to take action? She had always allowed things to come to her, never the other way around. She wished she could call Jamie to tell him he had been right, but she knew she couldn’t. Eliza returned the volume and waited for photocopies of the images to be made.

  As she walked home, she thought about how Williams had interpreted this second painting of Bonnard’s. Williams had imagined that the woman was waiting for a man to come, and that this man, who was watching her from the garden, wanted to be with her but was held back by something mysterious that even he didn’t understand. Eliza thought about how Williams had included the theme of waiting and the sense of mystery between two people in many of his Delta plays. Laura waits for gentlemen callers who never come, Blanche waits five years at Belle Reve for her situation to improve, and Maggie waits for Brick to make love to her. Eliza tried to remember the exact lines from Summer and Smoke when John tells Alma that they had come face-to-face several times and each time they seemed to be trying to find something in each other without knowing what it was they were looking for, but she couldn’t quite get the lines right. She would have to look them up when she got home.

  Sometimes she wondered if Issie had not existed, would she and Henry have stayed together. They had been so in love, but they had been so young. And sometimes she found herself asking that question as a way of consoling herself about the loss of ten years. But now she didn’t have any more patience for questions. She felt desperate for Henry—for his touch, for his voice. The boundaries between them had blurred, and it hurt to wait. That afternoon Eliza sat at her kitchen table and adjusted the text and finished her essay. She knew it was the last thing she would ever write in London.

  On July 29, Henry’s thirty-second birthday, he sent her a black-and-white photograph that on first glance appeared to be an image of a dark, rough-textured surface. Eliza studied it carefully and then realized it was an image of the surface of what she guessed was the harbor at night. In the far left-hand corner was the curved fin of a dolphin. When could he have taken that? she wondered. She turned the photograph over. On the back was written in Henry’s hand, “STILL—‘NO FUN WITHOUT YOU.’” Those were the letters. That was what the list of the letters on the back of the photographs had spelled.

  THE FOLLOWING EVENING, ELIZA’S ADVISER TOOK HER TO his club for a farewell dinner. She handed him her essay, which he read over a glass of champagne and pronounced it “Fine indeed.” He said that Macmillan was planning to bring the collection of essays out in the spring of the following year. She would need to get a high-resolution image of the painting to them by October 1. He reminded her that she might be making a mistake to leave London, but that he knew his advice was no match for an affair of the heart.

  A few days later, Eliza took a taxi to the airport. When she got to Heathrow, she called Henry. It was six in the morning in the States.

  “Hello.” He didn’t sound like himself.

  “Henry? Did I wake you up?”

  “Eliza. Where are you?”

  “I’m at Heathrow.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ELIZA ARRIVED IN CHARLESTON THREE HOURS LATER than originally scheduled. She looked out the window into the darkness and wondered if Henry would still be there. As she approached the entrance to the waiting area, she saw him one beat before he saw her. He was leaning against one of the columns off to the side, just as he had on that early Sunday morning in June when he was waiting outside her house.

  “Eliza.” He held her away from him. “You’re finally here.”

  “I am.”

  Henry moved his hands from her arms to her face and kissed her. “I began to think the longer you stayed, the worse the odds of your coming back.”

  “No,” she said into the soft folds of his shirt. “I was always coming back.”

  They walked to the baggage carousel and waited for her bags.

  “How’s Lawton? How is he about my coming back?”

  “Fine, he’s seems okay, but it will take time.”

  “So he’s still . . .”

  “No,
I didn’t mean it that way. Lawton’s just not great with change, he needs time to adjust. But he’s good. He spent two weeks at tennis camp and now is in Wyoming with my mother. They’re coming back in a few days so he can get ready for the State Tennis Championships. He’s spent the rest of his summer researching dogs. He’s checked out every book the library has multiple times. He’s desperate to have one.”

  “But I thought you already said he could.”

  “I told him he could have one for his tenth birthday—in May, but not before, I just can’t handle it with all the travel I’m going to have to do over the next couple of months. He’s been trying to move the date forward to Christmas.”

  “I just have those two duffel bags.” She pointed as they came around on the carousel.

  “That’s all?”

  “I shipped everything else back.”

  He lifted her large bags off the carousel. “Good Lord, Eliza, books or bullion?”

  “Clothes, books, and a present for you.”

  “Well then, that changes everything,” Henry rolled his shoulder forward to balance the heavier bag.

  They walked out into the soft warm air of a Charleston summer. The lights from the lampposts were diffused and blurred in halos around the posts. The dry fronds of the palmettos rustled in a slow breeze. “I’m parked way down there,” he said, jutting his chin to signal direction.

  Henry lifted her bags into the back of the Jeep. “Do I need to get you home right now?”

  “No, no one is home,” she said. “My mother and Ben stay in Middleburg all summer, and Sara’s still in Europe.”